Nebula 3.4 , December 2006 Images of Gypsies, a German Case: Gilad Margalit. By Habiba Hadziavdic Sinti and Roma have lived for over six centuries in Europe and, numbering well over eight million people, constitute its largest ethnic minority. It is somewhat hard to estimate the exact numbers of German Sinti and Roma since Germany’s Basic Law prohibits the collection of ethnic data. Nonetheless, a 1999 report submitted by the German Government to the “Advisory Committee on Implementation of the Framework Convention of National Minorities” estimated there to be 70,000 German Sinti and Roma. Many Romani leaders put the number between 150,00 and 200,000, mindful that their estimates include all Sinti and Roma living in Germany independent of their citizenship status 1. As a reference year for the first chronicle citation of Sinti and Roma in Germany, authors 2 point to the year 1417 and to Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia as the first detailed account. Münster was acquainted with Sinti and Roma from Heidelberg, observing and documenting their customs, which is why his chronicle became the most colorful, personal, and creditable account. Historically, German Sinti and Roma have been depicted as nomads and itinerant showmen. Often, the description of Sinti and Roma as non-sedentary or as people having only atypical occupations allows for further discrimination against this ethnic group. Portrayed as different from the rest of the Germans, both in their alleged essence (nomads) and means of livelihood (entertainers, door-to-door salesmen, or small circus performers), Sinti and Roma continue to be considered foreign or Fremde , although they have lived in Germany for more than six centuries. Sinti and Roma are generally characterized as the eternal Gypsy wanderers who stand outside of the conventional norms. Although the nomadic lifestyle might be desirable for some Sinti and Roma, as may also be the case for individuals of various other ethnicities, the argument that all Sinti and Roma are intrinsically nomadic is reductive and even at times racially prejudiced. Moreover, the issue of nomadism in relation to Sinti and Roma remains a 1 Source: “State FCNM Report”. http://www.coe.int 2 See Ebhardt, Wilhelm. “Die Zigeuner in der hochdeutschen Literatur bis zu Goethes ‘Götz von Berlichingen’”. Diss. Georg-August-Universität zu Göttingen, 1928. p. 17. Hadziavdic: Images of Gypsies… 51 Nebula 3.4 , December 2006 multifaceted issue that requires a well-balanced approach, even if some Sinti and Roma do assert their nomadic lifestyle. Accordingly, this paper challenges the antiziganistic hegemony that essentializes and others Sinti and Roma, forcing an entire group to morph into a homogenous entity. Particular lifestyles (nomadism or sedentary), types of occupations, and behavioral characteristics are not tied to a single identity of a group as a whole, but rather individually determined. Lastly, it is not one of the goals of German Sinti and Roma to create an artificial so-called “nation state” in which all Sinti and Roma would be granted citizenship based on their ethnicity. Rather, Germany is the nation state of German Sinti and Roma 3. As much as the historical data imparts that German Sinti and Roma have lived in Europe for centuries, the taxonomical description of their culture makes the debate about their nationality and the nature of their cultural production animated and continuous. In the spirit of the Enlightenment, research on Roma continues to be based on observation, collection, classification, and description whereby the researcher’s objectivity frequently remains unquestioned. Often, the authority of the researcher is established by an addendum of charts, tables, and other statistical data as an empirical support of their claims. In his book Time and the Other , postcolonial scholar Johannes Fabian addresses the issue of the de-temporization of the Other in anthropological writing. In his account, the Other is the object of a researcher’s study, ontologically and culturally presumed to be different. Additionally, Fabian maintains that the researcher is allowed to disregard temporal relations when studying a presumably unchanging, primitive culture. The terms civilization, evolution, development, acculturation, and modernization are all terms “whose conceptual content derives from evolutionary time 4” (17, footnote added). 3 Romani Rose, the Chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma and one of the most prominent political figures in the Sinti and Roma discourse in Germany, asserts that “…the reality is that the German Sinti and Roma are Germans and Germany is their own home country. […]Like the Danes, Sorbians and Frieslanders in Germany, the 70,000 Sinti und Roma in Germany form a historically developed national minority. Rose, Romani. “Sinti and Roma as National Minorities in the Countries of Europe”. The Patrin Web Journal . Sept. 3, 1999. http://www.geocities.com 4 Here, Fabian refers to the notion that non-Europeans were exemplars of the stages of human development that civilized Europeans had presumably passed through long ago. Allegedly, Europeans were far apart (far ahead of) in their propensity for development from their non- European counterparts. Fabian, Johannes. Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object . New York: Columbia University Press, 1983. Hadziavdic: Images of Gypsies… 52 Nebula 3.4 , December 2006 Persistently referring to the time of the Other as not belonging to the contemporary time, the researcher marginalizes the Other and permanently signifies it as primitive and “not- the-same.” Partially borrowing from Levi-Strauss, Fabian argues that the taxonomical description of culture becomes ontological when “it maintains that culture is created by selection and classification.” The consequent concept of culture is “devoid of a theory, creativity or production because in a radically taxonomic frame it makes no sense to raise the question of production. By extension we never appreciate the primitive as producer” (62). In cultural texts, the examples of portraying Sinti and Roma as primitive, as gatherers rather than producers, as people completely incapable of relating to modern society and its economically highly structured system, and as borrowers, if not thieves, are myriad. Moreover, the perpetual discrimination against Sinti and Roma is facilitated by the rhetoric of Gypsies as nationless people, who are first and foremost perceived as not German (or broader “not European”). As there might be individuals or groups of Sinti and Roma who indeed would associate with nationless, my emphasis in this critique will be on the general argument of the inherent nationless of Sinti and Roma as eternal wanderers incapable of relating to conventional lifestyle. It is the homogenizing feature of the discourse about Sinti and Roma that makes it antiziganistic. Similarly, some Sinti and Roma might adhere to the nomadic lifestyle, as do individuals of various other ethnicities across the world, but the contention that all Sinti and Roma are inherently nomadic is racially prejudiced. Additionally, due to the historical circumstances associated with nomadism and Gypsies, such as the anti-Gypsy laws explicitly targeting Sinti and Roma’s alleged itinerant way of life and trades, the issue of nomadism in relation to Gypsies remains a multifaceted issue that has not yet been studied in all its dimensions. In his 1996 article “Antigypsyism in the Political Culture of the Federal Republic of Germany: A Parallel with Antisemitism?” 5 and his 2002 book Germany and Its Gypsies 6 historian Gilad Margalit characterizes and exploits the cultural construct 5 Margalit, Gilad. “Antigypsyism in the Political Culture of the Federal Republic of Germany: A Parallel with Antisemitism?”. The Analysis of Current Trends in Antisemitism . No. 9, 1996. 6 Margalit, Gilad. Germany and Its Gypsies . Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2002. Hadziavdic: Images of Gypsies… 53 Nebula 3.4 , December 2006 “Gypsy” (he is only one of many authors who manipulates the construct 7). By critically engaging with this construct, I will illustrate here 8 some of the characteristics of the persistent nature of the contemporary discourse about Sinti and Roma that continues to study “Gypsies” as unchanging and primitive (“disregards temporal relations”). The critique of Margalit’s marginalization of the persecution of Sinti and Roma, both prior to and in the Holocaust, as well as in post-war Germany, allows me to delineate some of the general misconceptions still circulating within the Romany discourse (both in German and American scholarship 9). He portrays Gypsies (his term for Sinti and Roma) as stateless, apolitical, and criminal nomads, and in doing so creates fertile ground for continuous discrimination against Sinti and Roma. His characterization of Gypsies parallels historical, narrative, and ethnographic texts, which in similar fashion typify Sinti and Roma as uncivilized and uncultured Gypsies (outside of terms “derived from evolutionary time”, e.g. “civilization, evolution, development, acculturation, modernization…”) 10 . 7 On the topic of “political unconsciousness” and “wandering (stateless)” Gypsies, see Brearley, Margaret. “The Roma/Gypsies of Europe: a persecuted people”. In: Research Report for: Institute for Jewish Policy Research . No. 3, 1996.; an ethnographic account of Gypsies, see Fonseca, Isabel. Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey. New York: Vintage Books, 1996.; the “Gypsy occupations”